PLAN INTERNATIONALS TIMOR LESTE OFFICE

Report on the first National Survey of Disability in TL primary Schools

in 2008
The first ever survey report of
Disability in 336 Timor Lestes Type of Disability
Primary Schools in 2008 showed
Physical
that: 21% Intellectual
1. Nationally, there are 24%

approximately 2000 primary

school students with a
Complex
9%
disability. 1.02% of all students
or 1 in every 100 students has Othe
r Seeing
some type of disability
16%
2. On average each primary Speaking
11%
school can expect to have 3 Hearing
15%
students with a disability (2.89).
Although larger schools will have more disabled students, even small and remote
schools are teaching students with a disability
3. The most common disability type was intellectual or learning problems (24%)
followed by physical problems (21%). Children with problems in more than one area
were classified as complex and more than half of these students also had an
intellectual disability.
4. Many of the students with a learning problem have already repeated at least 2
grades of school and 41.6% of all disabled students were overage for their grade.
5. One third (33.2%) of all disabled students have a moderate or severe disability
6. There are more boys with a disability than girls attending primary school (63.6%
compared to 36.4%).
7. Global estimates of disability indicate that 10% of the population has a disability but
in Timor-Leste only 1% of those currently in school have a disability. We must
conclude that most disabled children are not in school. Many never enter school;
others drop out after only a few years due to difficulties associated with their
disability.
8. There is no routine data collected on disability at school or community level. Nor is
there reliable information about out-of-school children and rates of drop-out